The Clandestine Dark Suits
by oilandmachinery
Summary: "There are times, when it's just her, Red, and the card shark, where Larxene will suddenly become subject to disgusting behaviors and thoughts." Larxene, Axel, Luxord, and a belief in reincarnation. Contains Turks.


The Clandestine Dark Suits

"But Luxord's...Luxord's not _bro _enough."

- A speaker at a Kingdom Hearts panel, in regards to this theory.

i.

There are times, when it's just her, Red, and the card shark, where Larxene will suddenly become subject to _disgusting _behaviors and thoughts.

The most embarrassing and sickeningly noticeable being: looking past those two losers for someone who isn't there. She doesn't know who the hell she expects to be there, and isn't surprised when that particular spot on the couch is empty. It's an automatic response.

Inevitably, Red and the card shark look at her strangely. She scoffs and laughs and drops hints of violence, while something inside her is wondering:

-_why are you out of uniform, shouldn't you be more polite to your superiors, why aren't those two sitting next to each other-_

This makes her start laughing again. She sounds hysterical, really and truly insane. Oh well.

At this point, Red and the card shark have, understandably, decided to ignore her. Maybe when she first joined, one of them would have questioned her sanity or gotten up and left, but not now. Oh, no. Now, they knew that would result in frayed cloaks and ruined hairstyles and having to explain to the Superior that yes, they were avoiding metal, water, and any other excellent conductors of electricity for a reason, and no, they didn't know anything about those melted remains of what used to be Ottomans in the Grey Room.

So they sit in silence.

She stops laughing, stands up, and sneers at the other two.

-_partners- _she thinks. -_suitsandgunsandlongblackhair-_

This makes her just the tiniest bit… uneasy. So she starts pacing. She sees Red and the card shark exchange a glance, like, Can we leave now without endangering ourselves and the environment?

She halts, turns around, and points a finger at Red.

He raises an eyebrow.

"Trivia time. Who's our boss?" she asks.

He sinks into his slouch a bit lower, and prepares to say something snarky, insinuating.

Then he stops and ends up mumbling, "Which one?" while shrugging halfheartedly.

Fuck _yes. _

She knew it. She's not the only one. The reason he didn't give her a straight answer was because he didn't know which boss she was talking about.

_-black coat or white suit-_

She wants to punch something triumphantly, but instead she shakes her head in mock sadness.

"Brilliant question, Red," she says, turning to the card shark.

He smiles.

She waits, hands on her hips.

"Who's our boss?" she asks.

"Hell if I know," he says.

Just as she's trying to remember, her brain ready to form syllables so goddamn familiar it almost hurts, they're interrupted by cotton candy blue hair and a deep voice asking if they're ready for their assignments.

And all of those thoughts and uncertainties are pushed aside.

ii.

She begins to piece together the fragments of words, of images, partly because she has nothing better to do, but mainly because she has to. They're unsettling her day-to-day life, like splinters in her mind.

It's not her Other's life. Oh, no. She knows Eleanor's life, she knows every miserable little detail. Eleanor didn't wear a suit or follow orders or wave a gun around. And she _definitely _wasn't ever —sneer, sneer— in love.

In love with this guy with long hair like a ladies'.

She knows what he looks like only through second-hand thoughts, doesn't have any memories of him directly. Her only impressions of him are the numerous thought-splinters like,

_-invitedmetodinner-_

Pathetic.

No, Eleanor was one bitter son of a bitch, and Larxene admired that. Sure, her death was embarassing to recall. Sure, she slaps the shit out of anyone brave enough to even mention it. But she doesn't dwell on that. What's important right now is living, getting what she wants, and making everyone else wish that the Heartless had merrily skipped right on by her world.

So no, not her Other.

However, she can't deny the possibilty of something… different, that she's prepared to accept as a possible answer for these thought-splinters. She's heard a few speculations, read a few reports. Call it whatever you want. Other lives, reincarnations. Doesn't matter. Doesn't fucking matter. She's prepared to accept that as an answer, hooray, it's resolved, let's move on.

It doesn't really bother her until the first time she dreams about it.

_She's been promoted._

"_To where?" she asks, knowing it will be another secretarial job, or a receptionist for some portly official who will pat her hand with chubby fingers and tell her she's doing a great job, would she like to come to dinner with him. Or a test subject, if the gods are feeling cruel._

_No, it's none of the above. _

_She's been promoted to the Department of Administrative Research._

_-turks?-_

_She doesn't say anything._

_They leave a piece of paper on her desk and exit her cubicle._

_She picks it up with an unsteady hand, stares at the words written on it, has to read them a few times to make sure. To _make sure.

_ Whispers, "I made it."_

_ -imadeitimadeitimadeit-_

_ She shivers, once. A small quiver of the shoulders and her celebrating is done with. It isn't professional to go around grinning like a dork. It isn't professional to burst out of her cubicle and start dancing with glee, either. She wants to do both._

_ -nerves?-_

_ -imnotnervous-_

_ She fusses over her reflection in the mirror. Every time she thinks she's ready, finally satisfied with her appearance, she notices flaws. She straightens her tie. Smooths down her jacket. _

_ Someone knocks on the door._

_ "Are you ready?"_

_ "Yes, just one second!"_

_ She takes a deep breath. _

_ -nerves-_

_ She's his replacement. He knows that, she knows that, everybody knows that. But he is bitter about it, and it shows. He doesn't want to be here, she can tell. Usually he'd be slouched in his seat, looking so boneless you found yourself wondering when he'd just slide to the ground, or forgoe a chair altogether and just stand against the wall. It was easier to illustrate your stories when you were standing._

_ But he only did that when he was relaxed. Now he's curled up, hunched against the back of his chair, defensively. _

_ -bodylanguage- _

_ "Fuck, kid, did'n anyone ever teach ya how ta shoot a gun?"_

_ She swallows. He has a right to be bitter. He has a broken leg, a shattered collarbone, gaping wounds that even magic can't cure in a few weeks. He is unable to do his job, an important job, and his replacement is this DUMB BLONDE who can't even shoot a gun._

_ -yoursisterwasbetter-_

_ -youregonnagetfired-_

_ "Shut up," she says, making a face at him. "I'll get better!" _

_He narrows his eyes and lifted one his arms, covered from wrist to shoulder in medical tape._

_ -terroristattack-_

_ -replacement-_

_He curls his fingers into the shape of a gun and points it at her._

_-justapushofabutton-_

_-goodbyesectorseven-_

_ "Bang."_

iii.

The next day, she tries to storm into Red's room.

It's locked. What an asshole.

She pounds on Red's door, loud. There's no response, so she stomps her foot viciously and storms into the Grey Room instead.

"Now, which one of you helpful _darlings_ is going to help me break down Red's door?" she asks the room full of idle men, bouncing her index finger up and down at each one of them.

Pool Boy jumps up, nearly tripping over himself.

"Ooh! I wanna help!" He flails his arms around in case she doesn't see him.

She snorts.

"Think again, honey. You're the Poster Child for Manorexia. I need someone useful, not you. I could play the xylophone on your ribs."

Eventually, she cajoles (read: bitches at until they give in) Dreadlock Guy and Lex to reduce Red's door to a pile of little splinters. Then they lumber off, probably to go lift some weights and chug protein shakes. Or practice their fake accent, in Dreadlock Guy's case.

She peers in. Red is still sound asleep. This is good. No, this is wonderful. It means that she has time to wake him up.

So she and a delighted Pool Boy go to the cafeteria, where she finds a bucket and Pool Boy fills it with freezing water. Then she ditches a whining Pool Boy somewhere in the corridors and heads back to Red's room.

SPLASH.

Red wakes up, kicking at his blanket, and proceeds to, in imaginative and perfectly clear terms, cuss out everyone from the resident Moogle to whomever invented water(?). Larxene is somewhat impressed.

When he finally gets a grip on his surroundings, he blinks blearily at her, the obvious culprit.

"You bitch."

"Can it, Red," she says, flinging the bucket to the side. "We need to talk."

"We can _talk _after I'm dry and have had preferably 10-15 more hours of sleep," he says, sitting up with a melodramatic groan. His hair is already beginning to dry, and it's frizzing.

"Oh-ho, no. No, we're talking now, because _I_ said so." She points at herself with a grin and a flourish. She's in charge, pun intended.

He sighs and slumps down onto his pillow. Defeated. And shirtless, which gives Larxene a nice front-row seat showcase of his prominent ribs. Maybe naming Pool Boy the Poster Child for Manorexia was a premature decision, she thinks. He and Red can share the prestigious title.

"What do you want to talk about, Larxene," Red says in a singsong voice. She wishes she had another bucket of cold water.

"What did you dream about last night?"

Red shrugs.

"Dunno."

She snarls.

"THINK about it. Come on." She leans forward and snaps her fingers in his face, a crackling spark rolling off the tips of her fingers. Just for show. "Put an effort into using that lone remaining brain cell of yours. What did you dream about? Who were you?"

He rolls his shoulders, stretching.

"A secret agent," he says.

She leans back. Looks down at him, skeptical. Tries to decide if he's serious or not.

–_pleasebeserious-_

_ -pleaseremember-_

Shut up. Fucking thought-splinters.

"Really?" she asks. But slowly, slowly, carefully, carefully. If it turns out that he's bullshitting, she can still get out of this without having humiliated herself.

He smirks.

"Yeah."

"Tell me more, why don't you?" She stresses it, like, hey, meathead, pay attention and tell me everything you know or I'll make you wish you didn't have an electric current running through your body, you stupid ginger.

He leans his head against the headboard, stares at the ceiling. The blanket shifts, exposes more skin, now she can see his ribs. She is struck by an urge to forcefeed him fatty food items.

"I was— let's see— A secret agent, yeah, and a damn good one at that."

She pulls up a chair and sits in it, inches away from the bed. Eyes never leaving his face.

_-iknewsomeonewithafacelikethat-_

"I was training someone," he says.

She's waiting. C'mon, dumbass, think.

He pushes himself back up til he's sitting against the headboard, and shrugs.

"And that's it. Why, if I may ask, do you need to know?" He tilts his head, lowers his eyelids, grins. "Having bad dreams, Larxene?"

She wants to punch him. He's lying, she can tell. Holding shit back. IMPORTANT shit.

"Don't fuck with me," she hisses, and stands up. She kicks the chair to the ground and leaves.

That night, she dreams again.

_-oh-_

_ -hesgorgeous-_

_ This is her leader. This is her chief. He is going to be telling her what to do, and oh, she will follow him to the ends of the earth._

_ "Hello," he says, pushing back his chair to stand up. The rest of his introductory speech is lost on her, because really._

_ -thathair-_

_ -thoseeyes-_

_ He is dark and tall and regal and stern and quiet and Gaia, she has never wanted anything so badly. _

_ -payattention-_

_ She promises to do her best. She smiles. She is enthusiastic and gung-ho and a total fucking suck-up. She doesn't care._

_ Suddenly, disturbingly, she doesn't need anyone's approval except his._

_ The memory of her sister is a distant afterthought; the want to outshine her a dream. This man, standing right in front her discussing meeting protocol, is her new motivation. _

_ Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the quiet one and the loud one talking. The loud one has a glint in his eyes that suggests he is telling a joke. Probably about her. _

_Working there has perks, but the cafeteria food is not one of them. One could suspect the Science Department of putting substances into their lunches in lieu of proper test subjects._

_One could suspect the Science Department of a lot of things._

_ "Hi," she says, setting her tray down across from him. He nods in her direction. She wonders if this accepting silence is why he and the loud one get along so well. _

_ -achatterboxandastone-_

_ She glances around the crowded room for the Chief, but doesn't see him. She sighs with disappointment and something more. The food on her tray has never looked so inedible._

_ The man across from her sits back, done eating if she's judging by the three trays in front of him that are all scraped clean. She tilts her head. Studies him through her bangs._

_To be honest, he scared her at first. The demeanor, the height, the sunglasses that hid his eyes. He seemed the very apex of a big scary hitman._

_However, for all his stoic silence and intimidating reputation, when he notices her staring at him, he becomes so flustered that he knocks his silverware to the ground. _

_She'd bet a billion gil that on the inside, he's a big softie._

_ The thought makes her smile._

iv.

The card shark actually has the gall to ignore her for a few moments. But when she does the mature thing and snatches the cupful of dice out of his hands, he folds his hands and looks at her, ready to hear what she has to say. Poolboy and Eyepatch make indignant whining noises.

"Hey! Larx!"

"C'mon, babe, give the man his dice."

"Shut up. Was I talking to you two morons? I'll give you a hint: The correct answer is, 'No, Miss Larxene, and we're terribly sorry for irritating the hell out of you.'"

Larxene pulls out a chair and slowly sits down. Shoos the idiots away. Crosses her legs, folds her arms. Stares the card shark down.

He smiles what he obviously thinks is a pleasant customer-service smile. It makes her nauseous.

"And what can I do for you, Miss Larxene?"

"What did you dream about last night?"

"Beg pardon?"

An ugly snarl darts onto her face, and she forces it into a savage grin. Like a shark, she thinks.

"Did I stutter? No, I didn't. So tell me, do fake accents cause muddled thinking, or is it the other way around?"

As if he were unaware of it, his fingers lift a die on the table and begin playing with it. His gaze is still on her.

"You'll have to repeat the question. So sorry."

"What did you dream about last night."

"A cafeteria."

The die disappears from in-between his fingers.

"A few helpings of particularly unappetizing food."

He shows his empty hands to her, palms out.

"And a little blonde bird."

He snaps his fingers, and the die reappears. She pulls her attention back to his face, because usually magicians distract you from their tricks by their words.

Not him. He has distracted her from his words by his tricks.

Then he is gone, spiralling into the dark, and she can't find him anywhere after that. She's not impressed by his disappearing act.

When at last, she finally falls asleep, she dreams of murder.

_ His eyes are blue, she thinks._

_ She lowers the gun. Doesn't know what to do with it. Looks around for a moment before deciding to put it in his hands. That's simple, right? She's wearing gloves, it shouldn't be a problem._

_ She's about a block away from the scene when her hands start trembling._

_ There's a sidestreet to her left, so she ducks into it. She finished the job early, but there's no need to call for a ride yet. _

_ The wall is her lifeline. She slumps against it and pulls her gloves off, trying to get her hands to stop shaking but she needs to get rid of his memory first._

_He wanted to negotiate, but Chief had said no. So she shot him. Now he's dead. This is her job._

_ She tells herself this over and over until the tremors fade away. _

_ -thatcouldhavebeenyou-_

_ -murderer-_

_ No, she was just doing her job. She was doing her job when she brought coffee to everyone, no Reno stop drinking my latte you dumb jerk it's mine, she was doing her job when she took phone calls, hello this is the Department of Administrative Research how may I help you, and she was doing her job when she _

_ Killed? Assassinated? Eliminated? _

_Murdered?_

_ She gives herself five minutes, leaning against the wall. They had said it would be like this the first few times, that it was natural. She had a conscience. She was a human being. _

_But this was her job._

_ -hehadblueeyes-_

_ When she gets back to the building, she writes her report. She turns in it on time. Then she goes to the training room and shoots things until she feels better._

_ It works. The next time she is given orders to shoot a person-_

_ -no-_

_ -notaperson-_

_ -notahumanbeing-_

_ -atarget-_

_ The next time she is given orders to shoot a target, it's a little easier. And the time after that and the time after that, until there is no flinching or pangs of guilt when she pulls the trigger. There's just stillness and a cold, quiet efficiency._

_ She turns in her report that day, on time, and is about to go to the training room and shoot things just because she can._

_ But Chief stops her, and she pauses, finger right above the elevator button._

_ "There's been a reassignment," he says. _

_ This could mean anything. Is she fired? Does she get to go to Costa del Sol? Is she in charge of digging up dead bodies?_

_ "You and I," he begins, and on the inside she is celebrating because yay, they're doing something together, "and the others," well fuck them, they don't have to come, "will be tracking down-"_

v.

The dream ends and she wakes up and is left with nothing.

No names, no meaning. She doesn't care about this woman's job, damn it, she just wants to know what these dreams have to do with her and Red and the card shark.

She's sick of it, she's sick of the dreams, she's sick of this woman, she's sick of _those two_ dancing around the subject whenever she brings it up.

She takes a vague, vengeful satisfaction in knowing that they're not friends in this life, not like the two in her dreams. At least then they can't plot against her.

The lab rats are still snug in their beds when she begins rifling through their files without permission.

_ -Gaia-_

Yeah, okay, let's start there, shall we? The name of a world. That's pretty damn basic.

But there's nothing. There's _G _and_ Gao _but nothing in-between.

She flips through folder after folder, straining her thought-splinters for names, places, anything. What was that vacation place she mentioned?

_-Costa del Sol-_

Yes, thank you ever so much.

And there it is, in her hands, a faded picture of white sand and beach umbrellas.

There are three people on the beach. One is a man, laughing, in mid-jump over a frothy wave. She frowns. She doesn't know him, but she doesn't like him. The lookin his bright eyes makes her want to reach into the photograph and slap that dopey grin off his face. Give him a taste of the real world, some good old fashioned cynicism and pain. No one has the right to look like that.

The other is a woman, standing from underneath a beach umbrella, watching the sky. There's something familiar in her controlled face, in her perfect posture. No one important, though, so she looks to the left, to the last figure on the beach and.

Oh.

It's _him. _The… love interest.

His hair's a bit different than in her dreams, but it's him. Younger, maybe?

She looks at the picture a bit longer.

Then with one loud tear, she rips it in two.

Of all the people, she thinks. Of all the people, she used to be in love with a stiff who didn't even take his suit off at the beach.

Hilarious.

She is supposed to be spending the day mapping out a series of caves, but quickly decides that her time would be better spent elsewhere. Handing the mapping papers over to a local, she convinces them to do her silly little homework. Fair's fair, of course, so in exchange she promises not to harm them or any members of their family.

She is such a saint.

The rest of the day is spent traveling in and out of worlds at a dizzying speed. This is, obviously, a waste of her time, but she feels it can't hurt to check.

Whenever she appears, she waits a few seconds. If it triggers something in her head, she'll stay. If not, she'll go.

There aren't any results.

She falls asleep that night in a very foul mood.

_ A bar._

_ -whyarewehere-_

_ She never takes days off. But the days are getting longer with nothing to fill them, her faith in her job is failing, and her professionalism is cracking. So when she looks up and notices him leaning against the doorframe, hands in pockets, asking her if she wanted to come with them for one of their legendary days off, she decides once is okay. Just once._

_ So now she's sullenly drinking straight from a tall and colorful bottle. She can't read the writing on the label, but whether that's from the effects of the drink or the language barrier, she isn't sure._

_ She doesn't care. That's what this stuff is for, right? Forgetting your troubles. Or something._

_ -Chiefdoesntlikeyou-_

_ -hedoesntrespectyou-_

_ -youreafailure-_

_ She glances at her companions. The quiet one is lost in thought, the loud one is currently keeping track of how many shots he's had. Trying to break a personal record, probably._

_ -slumdrunk-_

_ -ideservethismorethanyou-_

_ The place is quiet and smoky, the people eyeing them apprehensively. No waitress will approach their table, so she's the one who is sent to the front to get new drinks. She has been elected the official drink-fetcher because, in a charming display of chivalry and politeness, the quiet one refused to move and the loud one called seniority over her. _

_ And then, when THE VERY PEOPLE THEY HAD BEEN CHASING AROUND THE PLANET FOR HALF A YEAR show up, what do her superiors do?_

_Nothing. She tries to get them to get up, to put the fucking drinks down, to go do their jobs._

_ The quiet one? He does nothing. Says nothing._

_ And the loud one?_

_ He tips his head back, gulps down the booze, slams the glass down on the table. _

"…_Elena, you talk too much."_

vi.

Elena.

Elenaelenaelena.

So that's her name, Larxene thinks. She ponders this. She chants it in her head.

"Elena," she says.

The act of saying it out loud makes the thought-splinters hurt, like someone with a grudge is driving them in with a plank.

The woman's a total weakling, of course. A disgrace. She can't believe her mind is wasting her time with these pathetic dreams. And for some inane reason, she feels a depserate need to prove that she's not that woman.

That she never was.

She goes down to the cafeteria and looks for whatever that woman _–elena-_ was drinking. It tasted tart, she remembers, and came in a glass bottle.

Larxene has to taste unmarked bottles of vinegar, olive oil, and soy sauce before she finds what she's looking for.

She brings it to a table in the cafeteria. Pulls up a chair. Examines the bottle. …Well, hey, if _ELENA _could figure it out, so could she.

There's some sort of cork thing in it. After unsuccessful attempts to pull it out, she resolves the problem like most problems can and should be resolved: with her knives. She sticks a blade into the cork and pulls it out with a pop.

Then she sits back and takes a sip.

Huh.

Yeah, it's the same thing. She sneers at the bottle. This stuff isn't as bad as that woman made it out to be. What a pussy.

So she drinks it all.

_\mmfuck... _

_hey, it's axel's room _

LET'S GO IN. She decides this is a great idea.

_Great ideagreatidea_

She waltzes into his room, gives everything in the room a manic grin and a bow. She blows kisses to his bookshelf, to his chair. _chairsarenice. Mm_

_ my head…_

"Larxene?"

She hurls a knife in the direction of the speaker. Or tries to, and damn it, it ends up on the desk. that was unintentional

really.

"Larxene, what are you doing?"

"Nothing, _yo_," she says. Giggles. Why is that funny? she` ponders

. whips out anotherknife.

They're sharp. She pokes her finger with the tip.

"Yo," she repeats.

_-whatkindofastupidverbaltic is that anyway-_

Something takes the knife AWAY FROM HER. Not okay.

"Hey."

She

looks up.

It's Red. _or axel, whatever, but nicknames are preferrrred_

_ -letsgetbackathim-_

For what?

_-hewasalwaysbetterthanme-_

That's not my problem, hun, Larxene thinks, gazing past Axel's right shoulder. She sways

just a little.

"You should grow a ponytail," she tells him sternly.

He isn't paying attention to what she's saying. Nobody pays attention to the words of drunk .

No

body

…Hey, so everyone in this room. She laughs in his face.

"Are you drunk?" he asks. _-slumdrunk -_

"Are you _fucking stupid_?" she asks. Tries to walk, ohhh that was a bad idea_,_ falls down.

"Larxene," he says. "Go to bed."

"I can't, asshole," she says. She's already on the floor, so she curls up there. why the hellnot it's not that uncomfortable.? "My bed is miles away from here. It'd take me day_sss_." She hisses, a yellow and black snake on his grey carpet.

He sighs.

She hears this and lifts her head. Bares her teeth.

"Just lookin' at you is making me sober," she says.

He doesn't say anything and hey, shirtless again. not bad, gingerrr. He's an asshole, Larxene says to no one in particular. Everyone here is an asshole.

We're all assholes here, said the Cheshire Cat. _Cept for me. I'm a bitch._

The ceiling is moving.

she thinks thatmaybehe

_puts a blanket over her?_

But then she's asleep, so it doesn't matter.

_"We're going to die," she says._

_ Nobody says anything._

_ She is the only one by the window, looking out at their death approaching. The only one acknowledging their situation._

_The quiet one is leaning over in a chair, tensed and quiet, like he'd rather be anywhere but here. He has his phone out, staring at the screen._

_The loud one is silent for once, smoking a dozen packs an hour, keeping a close eye on the bandaged figure lying in bed._

_ It's unrecognizable under all those burns and bandages, and it takes her a minute to remember who it is. Or who it was._

_ -thepresident-_

_ -heshouldbedead-_

_But no, miracles happened in the worst way. The President is alive, but it doesn't matter, because by this time tomorrow they'll all be dead. The President, even. Now she has seen him bleed, they has all seen him bleed. He is no longer an untouchable being. _

_He is no longer invincible._

_ -adeadpresidentsneedno bodyguards-_

_ She wishes Mr. Tseng was here._

_ Their death is approaching in the sky. It's humid and hot and dark. Everyone has their jackets off, everyone's horrendously out of uniform, but it doesn't matter. They're sweaty and haven't slept for days and their hair is clinging to their faces. Nobody cares. The time for worrying about appearances is far past. _

_ The loud one snuffs his cigarette out in an ashtray and doesn't light a new one._

_ -wereallgoingtodie-_

_ -whereareyou-_

_ You're our leader, our Chief, we need you._

_ A pale hand pushes the door open, black hair swishes into the room, and for a second, she is happy again._

_ -butidontwanttodie-_

_ He nods at everyone._

_ "How's the President?" he asks._

_ The loud one shrugs. As if he hasn't been standing there keeping guard for the past six hours._

_ The quiet one looks up and slips his phone into his pocket. What is he doing? Whose call is he waiting for?_

_ The Chief hooks up a new bag to the IV, changing whatever useless liquid they're pumping into the President. She tears her attention away from him and focuses on the sky. Maybe if she prays hard enough, the meteor will go away. But she was never a praying sort of girl._

_ She's aware of him beside her a few moments later._

_ They stand in silence, admiring the view with a sort of morbid fascination. _

_ "How much longer?" she asks._

_ He hesitates._

_ "…It doesn't matter."_

_ And then she is crying, and he's holding her for the first time. Her hands are curled up against his chest, and she laughs through her tears when she realizes he's still wearing his suit and his tie is done up properly._

_ -dontgoaway-_

_ -dontletmego-_

_ -dontletusdie-_

vii.

Larxene, needless to say, is more than a little grossed out when she wake up in Red's room.

She slowly sits up. The room pulses around her.

"Guh," she says.

There is a cocoon of blankets on Red's bed. A head burrows out of it and looks in her direction. Incredibly, his hair looks _exactly the same_. Is that even possible?

"Feeling that hangover yet?" he says. Cue shit-eating grin. She wants to punch him. Fuck, she wants to punch everything. Her next mission: "Go to every and any world. Make things bleed until you get bored."

She jumps up, all knives and teeth.

"Why am I in _your_ room? I thought I had better taste than that."

A hand wiggles free of the blanket coccoon and scratches the back of his neck.

"I'm flattered, Larx, but you stumbled in here and passed out on my floor. It was incredibly sexy. I barely managed to keep my hands to myself."

"STOP TALKING," she yells. Or yaps, if she's being honest with herself and her high-pitched voice. She puts a hand to her forehead. Takes a deep breath. Closes her eyes. She has to talk about this. For 'closure.' For science, even! The lab rats would be proud.

"I dreamt about you last night," she says.

He doesn't even insinuate anything. What a shock.

"You were smoking, and wearing a suit. You didn't even bother to tie the fucking tie."

Nothing from Red.

"You…we were all…"

Waiting for our deaths.

She shakes her head, trying to get the panic to go away.

"You know what? Whatever."

She opens her eyes, and Red is looking at her. Waiting for her to go on.

"What?" she says. "That's it, story's over, the end. Don't look at me so expectantly, you're really pathetic."

Pathetic like Elena.

Pathetic like all of them. They just stood there, waiting to die.

"They didn't die," he says quietly.

"Yeah, right," she says, not wanting to how how he knows. Did he dream the same thing?

"That thing in the sky? Something got rid of it." He looks silly, buried up to his neck in a comforter.

"So, they lived. They survived and went on to do other things."

Larxene cocks an eyebrow.

"Such as?" she asks.

"Well," Red says, stretching inside of his cocoon, "the amazing redheaded secret agent went on to become King of Everything. For breakfast every day he had a six-pack, a carton of cigs, and fifteen hot blondes."

She snerks.

"That tall bald bro finally got laid. Everyone was so proud that they threw a party for him, with strippers and cake and everything, but he didn't attend. You know why? Mmcause he was too busy getting blown by this chick with the biggest tits in the world."

She sits back down.

"The blonde chick got married to this total stiff with the longest stick up his ass." He shows with his hands how long the stick is.

"Not too bad looking, though. Long black hair, like a ladies'." He pauses. "They moved to a cuddly little chocobo farm, had a bunch of babies, and lived happily ever after."

"A literary masterpiece, Red." She gives him a sarcastic slow-clap.

Now, Larxene knows he is making this up.

Larxene knows that what really happened was probably frustrating and unfair.

But the thought-splinters are gone, never to bother her again, and she's content with this fabrication of an optimistic answer. They're Nobodies, after all. Simple creatures. Not meant to _dwell_ on things. Don't think too hard, you won't like the answers.

It's just…

"Why aren't they here with us?" she asks.

He pretends to not know who she's talking about.

"What do you mean?"

She sneers.

"Don't be an idiot, idiot. I'm talking about…" She stops. Wants to use their names. Doesn't. "…that bundle of bandages you doted on. I'm talking about the guy with the pretty black hair."

For a moment, Red doesn't know what to say.

"Obviously, they're off doing better things than we are," he says.

And that's as close to the truth as she's going to get.

* * *

><p>ElenaErena = Larxene

Rude/Ludo = Luxord

And Axel is Reno because... because Nomura said so.

Hilariously, "Eleanor" was also a very minor character in ff7.


End file.
